Three Votes Away

The parable of the burning trees

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Once there was a man who lived in the woods. His cabin was surrounded by 51 trees, one of them, a large oak so close that its spreading branches shaded the roof. He lived there happily for many years. Eventually, there came a season so hot and so dry that when the sparks from a nearby campfire flew in and touched them, the trees practically exploded into flames. The man watched in horror from his kitchen window as the trees were consumed, one by one. Finally, the firemen arrived and put out the conflagration, but not until 48 trees had been destroyed.

Relieved, the man wiped his forehead and vowed to take preventive measures immediately. So the next morning he called his insurance agent. “I need to protect myself and my property,” he said. “How much will it cost for full flood insurance?”

Religious privilege over personal rights

This past week the U.S. Senate barely voted down an amendment to a highway bill that would have allowed employers to opt out of paying for their workers’ insurance for any medical service they believe is “contrary to the religious beliefs or moral convictions of the sponsor, issuer or other entity offering the plan.” (For those who aren’t familiar with the crazy American system, the most common way we get health coverage here is as a benefit from our employers. The recently passed Affordable Health Care act mandates coverage, which has brought the issue to the forefront.) In the media, it was mostly framed as a debate about birth control, with the right wing calling it a freedom-of-religion issue.

But the truth is the law was so vaguely worded that it would have permitted an employer to deny funding for any procedure, any drug, anything at all if he or she has religious qualms. If your boss is a Jehovah’s Witness, he might opt not to pay for your husband’s blood transfusion. If he’s a Christian Scientist, he might not want to help pay for your children’s vaccinations. Does he have moral objections about your upcoming heart transplant? Then maybe you should pay for it out of pocket. His “conscience” trumps your health.

The meaning of the parable

The 51 trees represent the smallest majority vote possible in the Senate. The 48 burned trees are the Senators (3 Democrats and 45 Republicans) who voted to privilege religious beliefs over personal human rights. The cabin is our secular republic. So who is the man in the cabin? That would be Dr. Robert M. Price, aka The Bible Geek.

An Asian news perspective on Iran

In Asia Tims Online, US misunderstanding on Iran lingers By Ali Gharib:

Some extracts:

But much of the attention in Washington and elsewhere in the US is often misplaced, misguided, or completely detached from the realities currently embroiling Iran in its most significant crisis since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

US experts with firsthand knowledge of Iran grew older and their knowledge grew more obsolete. . . . . “We have a whole generation of foreign service officers who didn’t learn Farsi.”

“I was the point person on Iran from 2005 to 2008, and I never once met an Iranian official,”

Many pundits and politicians in the US view the current crisis as an opportunity to instigate a regime change in Iran, projecting their own aspirations on those of the demonstrators . . . . .

. . . . no credible evidence has emerged to suggest that the protest movement as whole endorses an overthrow of the system.

Undeterred by those realities, or perhaps unaware of the dynamics, US commentators continue to present the protesters as opposed to the system of the Islamic Republic.

the battle being waged in Iran is between two factions within the regime. Even Mousavi’s faction, . . . does not necessarily want to install a democracy in the Western sense.

“The neo-cons know nothing about Iran, nothing about the culture of Iran, . . . They have no interest in understanding Iran, in speaking to any Iranian other than Iranian exiles who support the idea of invasions

“There are people who . . . were worried, as some wrote in op-eds, that Mousavi would be a distraction and would make it easier to Iranians to build a nuclear weapon. And now all a sudden they want to be on his side? Go away.”

(Inter Press Service)

Reporters on Iran: FACTS, please.

ABC (Australian Broadcasting Commission)’s correspondent, Ben Knight, has an article for the national news detailing his “expulsion” from Iran.

Here is the critical passage:

Then, on the day after the eight civilians were killed, our Iranian translator took a phone call with a message from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance, which oversees the foreign media in Iran.

All press cards had been cancelled; journalists were banned from covering any unauthorised gatherings; and we were to work only in our offices or hotels.

The message was clear enough. But then this bit was added on the end: ‘The police are no longer in charge of the city; it is now under the authority of the Revolutionary Guards.’

It was obviously sheer intimidation. And to be brutally honest, it worked.

Now I have not read as much as many others have about the details of expulsions of reporters from Iran. I would not be surprised if many representing mainstream news outlets have been expelled. But the reason I say that is that from the coverage I do read — from a miscellany of independent reporters on the ground in Iran — that there have been strong indications of pro-government demonstrations and other indications of even perhaps majority support for the present government, while the mainstream media only seems to report the anti-government evidence.

I cite Ben Knight’s reporting above as an example of the sort of confusion that is being fed the western audiences.

The sole source of Ben Knight’s directive to leave Iran under “government orders” was an Iranian translator relaying what he/she said they heard on a phone call claiming to be from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance. Knight confesses he had been scared enough not even to check out the veracity of that phonecall, but to get out of the country immediately. Admittedly he had only one day left on his visa, and for that reason did not want to risk any other activity. But I would be interested to know if since his return he has reapplied to enter, or if any ABC reporters have applied to enter and what the response has been from Iran.

But we are not told anything like this.

All we are left with is the impression — the impression — that the Iranian authorities had expelled Ben Knight. We do not know from the evidence he cites if it was true or not. Nor can Knight know, if we take his report at face value. Was Ben Knight really targeted for intimidation? If he was, we have questions about why Robert Fisk can continue, with other reporters, to send back critical messages of Iran’s government and the heroism of its people.

Ben Knight in his original article (see the link above) refers to police on motor cycles, but he does not give us evidence to enable readers to affirm that in every case motor-cycle riders were indeed police, and in a previous post there was a picture of Iranian civilians riding motor-cycles through streets showing evidence of rioting/destruction. So what can a thoughtful reader to conclude if anything? Knight also refers to civilians mobbing his team because of their camera, and even refers to a hand being placed over a lense — but again there is no way of knowing from his report if this was a civilian’s hand or a policeman’s.

Now when I compare all that with previous posts here of Robert Fisk being allowed to continue reporting in Iran, and even relaying in his reports discussions he has with other reporters in Iran — SINCE BEN KNIGHT’S departure — I can only be left with questions in my mind.

Mainstream media clearly cannot be relied on as a sole source of information coming from this country at this moment.

Seeing Through All the Propaganda About Iran

This can be accessed via Information Clearing House or from onsite direct.

From the site: Eric Margolis is contributing foreign editor for Sun National Media Canada. He is the author of War at the Top of the World and the new book, American Raj: Liberation or Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West and the Muslim World. See his website.

A little democracy in the Islamic Middle East is a dangerous thing for the west. When given the choice people tend to vote “the wrong way”. Wonder why? Our wars and other military ventures we support have all had the noblest of intentions and the best interests of the people at heart. Seems only western backed brutal torture-hungry anti-women barbaric punishing dictatorial regimes as in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco can be relied on to be our buddies. But can’t see why the ordinary folks of those regimes have any reason to hate us.

Some extracts:

Meanwhile, we have been watching an intensifying western propaganda campaign against Iran, mounted by the US and British governments. What we hear is commentary and analysis that comes from bitterly anti-regime Iranian exiles, “experts” with an ax to grind, and US pro-Israel neocons yearning for war with Iran.

In viewing the Muslim world, Westerners keep listening to those who tell them what they want to hear, rather than the facts. We are at it again in Iran.

Washington has been attempting to overthrow Iran’s Islamic government since the 1979 revolution and continues to do so in spite of pledges of neutrality in the current crisis.

While the majority of protests we see in Tehran are genuine and spontaneous, Western intelligence agencies and media are playing a key role in sustaining the uprising and providing communications, including the newest electronic method, via Twitter. These are covert techniques developed by the US during recent revolutions in Ukraine and Georgia that brought pro-US governments to power.

US and British efforts to subvert Iran’s government could yet blow up in our faces. And do we really need another monster crisis after Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Palestine?

Meanwhile, other Mideast nations allied to the US will look at Iran and conclude that giving any democratic rights can be downright dangerous and must be avoided at all costs.

Robert Fisk (thankfully a few such reporters do exist) sifting fact from fantasy in Iran

Robert Fisk’s latest from Iran in The Independent:

In Tehran, Fantasy and Reality Make Uneasy Bedfellows

Some excerpts . . . .

On the myth of Iranian crackdown on western reporters (and CNN bias):

But then we had the famous instruction to journalists in Tehran from the Ministry of Islamic Guidance that they could no longer report opposition street demonstrations. I heard nothing of this. Indeed, the first clue came when I refused to be interviewed by CNN (because their coverage of the Middle East is so biased) and the woman calling me asked: “Why? Are you worried about your safety?” Fisk continued to spend 12 hours a day on the streets. I discovered there was a ban only when I read about it in The Independent. . . . . .

On a woman who told him of something sounding like a state-sponsored murder:

I never saw her again. Nor the photograph. Nor had anyone seen the body. It was a fantasy. Earnest reporters check this out – in fact, I have been spending at least a third of my working days in Tehran this past week not reporting what might prove to be true but disproving what is clearly untrue.

After getting a phone call in the middle of the night about a reported massacre of students on a university campus, and being informed of photographic evidence of the shooting of a young male student the day before, Fisk found both stories to be total fantasy. Yet that did not stop his newspaper editor calling him to ask about the news he had heard:

There are few provable assurances in the Middle East, often few facts and a lot of lies. Dangers are as thick as snakes in the desert. As I write, I have just received another call from Lebanon. “Mr Fisk, a girl has been shot in Iran. I have a video from the internet. You can see her body…” And you know what? I think he might be right.

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Latest on western media misinformation on Iran

The details of stories of vote-rigging in Iran simply lack credibility as evidence that the election result was fraudulent. No doubt there was some fraud on both sides, as there usually is in many western elections (my Australia certainly included), too. But what we are reading now in the media is nothing short of sheer misinformation. Media spin out rumour and unsubstantiated stories or rely on the most blatant propaganda in the form of various government and political party press releases. (Compare my previous post for more details and genuine inside reporting.)

Examples:

• By Esam Al-Amin, on the overall relative health of Iranian democracy and for a review of the actual facts vs media reports:

A Hard Look at the Numbers: What Actually Happened in the Iranian Elections?

• Maarten Doude van Troostwijk is a Dutch historian and translator who has observed many elections in the former communist block for the British Helsinki Human Rights Group, writes:

Stolen Election in Iran? An Inside View of Vote Fraud

• Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, Paul Craig Roberts, gives detailed background on what should surely be obvious to any reader who has been looking for sourced evidence for most of the astonishing claims made in the western media:

Iran Falls to US PSYOPS

• On the stories that more than 100% of the people voted read Iranian reports on their own investigations (and compare with the U.S. response of blatant fraud in the Bush election):

Guardian Council: Over 100% Voted in 50 Cities

• And for those who like a bit of history, Chris Hedges, who has a weekly column for www.Truthdig.com, is currently a senior fellow at The Nation Institute and a Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and the Anschutz Distinguished Fellow at Princeton University. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. Hedges, who has reported from more than 50 countries, worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, where he spent fifteen years.

Iran Had a Democracy Before We Took It Away

Not forgetting (how could we?) the neo-con establishment in 2002 of the Coalition for Democracy in Iran.

In other words, if it’s imprudent to bomb them for a little while, work like hell to whiteant them until they restore another one like the shah.

Western media treatment of Iranian elections and the ongoing demonization

“Change for the poor means food and jobs, not a relaxed dress code or mixed recreation…Politics in Iran is a lot more about class war than religion.”Financial Times Editorial, June 15 2009

June 19, 2009 “Information Clearing House” — There is hardly any election, in which the White House has a significant stake, where the electoral defeat of the pro-US candidate is not denounced as illegitimate by the entire political and mass media elite. In the most recent period, the White House and its camp followers cried foul following the free (and monitored) elections in Venezuela and Gaza, while joyously fabricating an ‘electoral success’ in Lebanon despite the fact that the Hezbollah-led coalition received over 53% of the vote.

The full article here.

Evidence of orchestration of the protests for western audiences? Iran Faces Greater Risks Than It Knows and Obama’s administration’s directive to Twitter.

And from my favourite Mid East correspondent, Robert Fisk, who gives an eyewitness account of who the demonstrators are, and what they want, and corrects a lot of misleading impressions coming through other channels that lazily rely more on official news releases and rumour:

Extraordinary scenes: Robert Fisk in Iran

Posted Wed Jun 17, 2009 11:23am AEST
Updated Wed Jun 17, 2009 12:17pm AEST

‘The authorities are losing control of what’s happening on the streets and that’s very dangerous and damaging to them’ (www.flickr.com: Shahram Sharif)

//

• Audio: The Independent’s Middle East correspondent is defying Iran’s media ban. (ABC News)

The long-standing Middle East correspondent for The Independent, Robert Fisk, is defying the government crackdown on foreign media reporting in Iran.

As he explains, he has been travelling around the streets of Tehran all day and most of the night and things are far from quiet:

See the Australian ABC news site for the full article and audio link.

Misquoting Ahmadinejad to isolate Iran (in prep for the next war?)

Western governments happily have mainstream media to report their pronouncements uncritically (saves media corp money to rely on press releases) and one has to dig a little to learn that those nations that have protested against President Ahmadinejad of Iran the loudest . . .

• are but a minority (unfortunately a powerful minority), and
• that their protests are in fact propaganda misrepresentations or outright lying translations of what Ahmadinejad has actually said — at least on two occasions.

So for those interested:

Full Text of President Ahmadinejad’s Remarks at U.N. Conference on Racism

Iran’s President Did Not Say “Israel Must Be Wiped Off The Map”

Iranian bloggers write letters to Jesus Christ

Global Voices has published a post by Hamid Tehrani alerting us to several Iranian bloggers writing letters to Jesus Christ on their blogs.

I won’t spoil any surprises by saying any more. Check out Iranian bloggers write letters to Christ for yourself.

Demonocratic Iran — threat to the Free(-oil) world

There’s an excellent radio series now available online (mp3 podcast, live-stream or transcript) that some may find enlightening. At least the first of a two part series is currently available.

Did Iranian leaders really call for genocide of Jews and nuking of Israel?

There have been several rebuttals of the western media’s outrageous uncritical relaying of neo-con and “Bush-it(e)” propaganda asserting that Iranian leadership has called for the wiping of Israel off the map.

No such claim was made, and the fact that the mainstream western media reported it as fact speaks disheartening volumes about that media’s complicity with the corporate elite or lack of any principle other than $$ and ratings.

If you have been left with any impressions that Iran really did call for Israel to be “wiped off the map” then do please check out this latest rebuttal and forward to friends:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17925.htm

That such incredible lies can be perpetrated in the time of so much ability for a sincere media to really expose such nonsense for what it is, ….. what can one say, if not simply that when another mass killing happens that it will be the “fourth estate” as much as any who must be held accountable!

Questions to be answered re the strange Brit captivity in Iran

“This week Bea ruminates upon the latest Iran hostage crisis and wonders why these British sailors were so vulnerable to capture in the first place and why the Ministry of Defence made the extraordinary decision to allow them to sell their stories?”

check out late night live 11 april 2007